CONSTRICTOR BOA. 



34 1 



tude as to prevent the army of Attilius Regulus 

 from the use of the river; and after snatching up 

 several soldiers with its enormous mouth, and de- 

 vouring them, and killing several more by strik- 

 ing and squeezing them with the spires of its tail, 

 was at length destroyed by assailing it with all the 

 force of military engines and showers of stones, 

 after it had withstood the attack of their spears 

 and darts : that it was regarded by the whole army 

 as a more formidable enemy than even Carthag*e 

 itself; and that the whole adjacent region being 

 tainted with the pestilential effluvia proceeding 

 from its remains, and the waters with its blood, 

 the Roman army was obliged to remove its sta- 

 tion : he also adds, that the skin of the monster, 

 measuring 120 feet in length, was sent to Rome 

 as a trophy." 



The learned Frienshemius, in his Supplementa 

 Liviana, has attempted a more ample and circum- 

 stantial narrative of the same event, and it cannot 

 be unacceptable to the reader to receive a quota- 

 tion from an author who has so liappily imitated 

 the manner of the great historian. 



Interea M. Regulus, &c/' 



In the mean time Regulus, everywhere vic- 

 torious, led his army into a region watered by the 

 river Bagrada, near which an unlooked-for mis- 

 fortune awaited them, and at once affected the 

 Roman camp with considerable loss, and with ap- 

 prehensions still more terrible; for a serpent of 

 prodigious size attacked the soldiers who were 

 sent for water, and while they were overwhelmed 



